Social Media provides people with a certain amount of opportunity to become known and engage in promotions. However, the ease in which you can tell about yourself and your products can easily be abused.

If this article seems especially informative to you after you read it, please read it two more times. For most of you it will be a gentle reminder about how to use social media in moderation along with a few tips I’ve been able to glean thus far in my use of Facebook, Twitter as well as wee bit of time on LinkedIn.

First off, I am not a social media guru, or expert. At first glance this may seem a problem, why listen to a person spouting off about something he claims not to know much about? Well, I am a reader, a person, a bookseller, a business person, publisher, and more. My ideas are common sense, take them for what you feel they are worth.

So, here we go: I do not need to be bombarded by your attempts to sell me things. I understand and would also like to try and sell people books non-stop, but the problem is I lose interest (and you do too) if all you do is treat me like a consumer of your book(s). I want to know you care about other people and their books. The message you send out, if all you do is promote yourself, is that you only care about you. As a result I deduce that I do not want to read a book about someone who behaves like this. Plus, chances are your book will not be very good if you are this selfish and self-centered.

Some other random thoughts:

1) If you are on twitter try retweeting other’s comments. It’s social media, not you media.

2) Please don’t consistently tell me your book is free. I don’t read to save money and am happy to pay for a book. Plus, telling me your book is free is not a very convincing reason to read it. This is sales 101.

3) It is pretty doubtful that anyone really wants to read about ALL your five-star amazon reviews. A few are okay. It’s one thing to be excited. It’s another thing to be pushy.

4) Please DO share tours, readings, and tips that you’ve learned from being an author.

I guess I mostly tire of people thinking that “asking for a sale” all the time is what social media is all about. The best way to make your book, or company, endure is to interact with others as you’d like to be interacted with. Do you buy a book when you are told to buy it over and over and over and over again relentlessly? I doubt it.

Anyhow, the internet offers plenty of ways to promote yourself, but learning how to best use these publicity methods takes common sense, patience, and practice.